UNION VALE - From a lawn chair in their driveway or the hot tub in their backyard, Bill and Bernie Burke can watch 555,000 lights dance along to music.

For the past 18 years, the Burkes have lived across the street from Timothy Gay and his family, giving them a front-row seat to watch as a humble display of holiday decorations grew into a Guinness World Record-holding spectacle.

The ERDAJT Holiday Light Display each year places a spotlight on the Gays’ residence on Patrick Drive in an otherwise quiet neighborhood, and raises tens of thousands of dollars for charity.

Visitors are welcome to drive through the Gays’ circular driveway for free and watch the show, which differs each night as 555,000 lights are synchronized to more than 260 songs. Donations over the display’s 22 years topped $269,000 entering this season, which began on Nov. 24 and will end Dec. 28.

The money goes to the Union Vale Fire Department, which distributes it to various charities. More than $47,000 was raised last year.

Named after the initials of Timothy Gay’s children — Emily Raejean, Daniel Arthur and John Timothy — the ERDAJT display has become an annual tradition not only for the family, but also for neighbors and Hudson Valley residents from near and far.

Bernie Burke, 57, watches the lights in her driveway most nights when she gets home from work and her husband, 56, said the family has incorporated watching the show into its own annual holiday party.

“We have beer, wine, my wife makes a chili, we have Ziti,” Burke said. “I go over a couple of times during the night and take different groups of people ... It’s a part of our holiday tradition.”

Brewster resident Paige Robertson and her 6-year-old son, Thomas, visited the Gays’ home Friday night, circling slowly around the driveway.

“When I was a kid, we used to drive around and look at Christmas lights and I feel like there’s not a lot around anymore,” said Robertson, who takes her son each year and leaves money with Union Vale firefighters outside the front door. “When you lose the traditions, what else do you have?”

The Gays’ tradition started in 1995 as a simple display of 600 lights. When last they reclaimed the Guinness World Record for the largest residential light display in 2014 — their page still stands on the Guinness website — they had more than 10 times that, 601,736.

That total was only active for three days in order to set the record — the display boasted a scant 473,199 lights most of 2014 — and was made possible through corporate donations. This year’s display is the largest in its history for an entire season.

Some elements of the display remain from past years, like the Santa Claus, reindeer and the twinkling words “#TopThat.” But a roughly 400-pound sphere that hangs from a tree above their pond, which lights up with colors and “cost a fortune,” is new, Gay said.

His children came home on weekends to put together the massive object resembling a carriage. To hang it from a tree, Gay cranked a pulley connected to the orb’s cable while his son John was in a rowboat positioning it. Preparations for each year’s display typically begin about two months before the first show.

The kids helped with choreographing the lights to songs, too, which Gay said takes about 20 hours and had to be redone this year as they added about 14,000 lights.

“I think they’re all very bright kids, but I’m sure they all have a desire now to express creativity,” he said. “They all kind of grew up in the middle of it.”

John Gay, who studies computer science at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has come home the past eight weekends to help with the display.

“Especially now that I’m in college ... it’s nice I get to see the family,” he said. “It’s a nice break from school and all the work. I mean, it’s work here, too, but it’s nice.”

For the Burkes, the light display has become as much a part of their holidays as picking up a Christmas tree or hosting their annual party on Dec. 22.

They’ve watched as the Gays’ ambitions grew and incorporated music, and endured as the Gays learned how to maintain the show without causing neighbors’ lights to flicker and dim (they’re using energy-efficient LED bulbs now). The Burkes also learned to hang their “Burke line of defense,” a string of garland around their front yard to discourage visitors from parking on it.

The Burkes said they hear from neighbors who have moved away and say they miss looking out their window to see the lights. And, if anyone in the neighborhood has an issue with the display, Bill Burke said he reminds them of all the good visitors’ donations do.

“What he does for charity is unbelievable,” he said. “Some of the neighbors don’t appreciate it — I do.”